Buddhist Temple

“Many American adopt the ugly baby, you have handsome boy.”-Man on the street that stops each day to talk to me to practice his English. “James”

People say the darnedest things huh? I had to laugh at this comment! I apologize for no pictures today, I cannot get our camera to download them to the computer. We'll have to try it later.

Ok, so I will be the first to admit that I am a goal-oriented person with unrealistic expectations at times. But this trip I think I am doing pretty well. Before leaving for China, I really stopped to think about how I wanted to approach this trip mentally. Not some big daydream of me being this hard core, low maintenance traveler with unending flexibility and patience, but something I could really attain. In a previous blog entry I talked about how I wanted to genuinely love China. I envisioned myself flying into China with arms open wide, ready to take it all in. I think today I felt more of a true love for China. Today we visited a Buddhist Temple. On the way there our guide explained that most of the children that are adopted would have come from practicing Buddhist families. So they like the families to see a little bit about it.

Before I go into more detail about the temple though, let me say a few words about the other families in our group. It has been absolutely delightful to see the changes in everyone since getting their children. We all have chunky kids! One family is here getting their very first child. They are both now just literally glowing and so full of love. I cannot help but feel such a swell of gratitude each time I look over at them and their little girl. It has been a privilege to witness the transformation. You don’t really see it in yourself, but watching it in others is a pretty neat experience. There are so many moments on this trip where I find myself just thinking, “Thank you God.” Sometimes that is all there is to say.

I also met a woman today with so much courage that I find I cannot stop thinking about her. She is here with her teenage daughter. I started talking to her because they also have a 2 year old boy. We chatted at breakfast one morning. Today I ran into them again in the White Swan Playroom. This room has been a godsend for us! There, Kai can run and yell all he wants. This woman, I did not get her name, but she is the mother of 8, 4 biological and 4 adopted from China. She is here adopting the little 2 year old boy, Adam. Adam has a deformity with one of his legs. It stops pretty much after the knee. She shared a bit with me about Adam. After they accepted their referral of Adam, she met a woman in his province via the internet. Anyway, after this woman went to check up on Adam at the orphanage. He was only 17 pounds. This friend living in China took Adam into her home to be his foster mom. Anyway, she took him in until they could come and get him.

We have met so many amazing people. For me, this trip has been all about people. At the Temple I stayed right by our guide Judy and asked her many questions. While kneeling in front of the monk for our blessing, it just hit me so hard, that we are here, getting a blessing from this monk, with our son, in China, and I just felt such on overwhelming feeling of full happiness. Also, it was so cute, when we were blessed with the water, Kai shock it off his head and looked at the monk like, "Hey, what are you doing buddy?" I learned that at the temple, apples signify health, (an apple a day…)peanuts, safety (could this be why the serve peanuts on planes?), oranges equal wealth, and flowers are for beautiful and healthy children. Pretty neat. The temple was filled with incense, which reminded me of Josh in college always wanting to burn incense and me hating it, but not wanting to tell him that! We laughed about that.

You know on tours there is always a person who stays right by the guide and asks them a million questions, well that was me. I learned so much. We actually were lucky enough to be there on a special ceremony day, that only happens a few times a year! So we were able to see all the monks and hear and watch some of the chanting, Amazing.

The other moment of significance came later that afternoon, as we met Judy in a hotel room to go over paperwork. She pretty much told us exactly what to put where. It was such a relief to not have to study the forms by yourself and try to figure it out as I have done with all other forms. I so appreciated that! It hit me again in a new way, all that we have done to get to this point. All the paper, the tears, the long talks with family and friends regarding this adoption, and what a sweet, bright and beautiful boy we have, so full of life and just delightful. And soon, just a few days, we get to bring him home. Again, such gratitude filled my heart for all the people who have helped bring this little boy into our lives. We may be here in China picking him up, but it is our family, our friends, our church community at Orchard Park and all of those that I am not even aware of that have prayed for Kai and our family, those are the people that are truly bringing our sweet boy home. There is no way we could have done any of this without all of that support and all of those prayers.